Departmental Schemes

605. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Education and Youth whether her Department will review the adequacy of iScoil funding in light of the fact that 381 eligible referrals were refused places since the 2022-2023 academic year due to limited capacity; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [39734/26]

606. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Education and Youth whether her Department will establish a target that no eligible child referred to iScoil should be refused a place solely due to funding or capacity limitations; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [39735/26]

607. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Education and Youth whether any assessment has been carried out into the long-term educational outcomes for children who were eligible for iScoil but were refused a place due to capacity limitations; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [39736/26]

660. Deputy Pearse Doherty asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage if he will extend the above-the-shop grant to micro-businesses; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [40304/26]

687. Deputy Barry Heneghan asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage the methodology, cost assumptions and market data used in determining the grant thresholds of €95,000 for one residential unit, €115,000 for two units, and €135,000 for three or more units under the croí cónaithe Vacant Above the Shop Grant; if the adequacy of these thresholds has been reviewed in light of cur…

688. Deputy Barry Heneghan asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage the reason commercial properties held through company ownership structures are excluded from eligibility under the croí cónaithe above the shop scheme; if his Department has examined the extent to which this eligibility restriction may affect uptake of the scheme, particularly in Dublin city where many commerc…

689. Deputy Barry Heneghan asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage if his Department has undertaken a review of the operation, uptake and effectiveness of the croí cónaithe above the shop scheme; if barriers to participation, including ownership structure requirements and refurbishment costs, have been identified as factors affecting application levels; and if he will make a …

690. Deputy Barry Heneghan asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage the number of enquiries, applications, approvals, refusals and completed projects recorded by each local authority under the croí cónaithe above the shop scheme since its establishment; the total value of grants approved and paid in each case, in tabular form. [39308/26]

713. Deputy Pádraig Rice asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage to respond to matters raised in correspondence (details supplied); if his Department will intervene directly in this case; if his Department is aware of such issues in other local authorities; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [39841/26]

714. Deputy Thomas Gould asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage when he will introduce staged payments for the derelict properties grant. [39875/26]

724. Deputy Conor Sheehan asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage the rationale for restricting the vacant above-the-shop grant and the broader vacant property refurbishment grant to individual applicants only, explicitly excluding registered micro-companies; if he acknowledges that advising property owners to undertake complex and costly corporate restructuring to transfer a…

725. Deputy Conor Sheehan asked the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage if he plans to introduce interim measures, exemptions, or a phased pilot scheme to allow micro-companies to access the vacant above-the-shop grant where planning, funding, and construction readiness are already established; the timeline for reviewing these eligibility criteria; and if he will make a statement o…

1087. Deputy Ivana Bacik asked the Minister for Children, Disability and Equality the position regarding the national childcare scheme (NCS), in particular on circumstances arising in a situation (details supplied); and her plans to amend section 4(3) of the Childcare Support Act 2018 to ensure that the NCS is flexible and responsive to families’ needs in practice by treating registered hours as a…

1242. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Health whether any expenditure threshold exists within the treatment abroad scheme above which additional managerial, financial, legal or executive approval is required prior to authorisation of treatment abroad. [39141/26]

1243. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Health whether the treatment abroad scheme operates any formal distinction between clinical eligibility approval and financial expenditure approval; and if so, to provide details of the separate approval pathway. [39136/26]

1244. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Health the grade, title or officeholder responsible for final authorisation of individual treatment abroad scheme applications involving projected expenditure above €100,000. [39137/26]

1245. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Health whether any internal audit, value-for-money review or external governance review of high-cost treatment abroad scheme approvals has been conducted since 2020; and if so, to provide details and findings. [39138/26]

1246. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Health whether the HSE maintains a register of the highest-cost treatments approved annually under the treatment abroad scheme and the aggregate annual expenditure associated with such approvals. [39139/26]

1247. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Health whether her Department receives routine reporting on high-cost approvals under the treatment abroad scheme, including cumulative expenditure, approval volumes and exceptional-case expenditure. [39140/26]

1248. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Health whether the 2022 Comptroller and Auditor General audit referenced in relation to the treatment abroad scheme constituted a full scheme audit or a sample-based review; and if she will provide the scope, methodology and findings of same. [39135/26]

1249. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Health whether any internal audit reports, governance reviews, expenditure-control assessments, or value-for-money evaluations relating to the treatment abroad scheme have been conducted by the HSE, Department of Health, Internal Audit, National Financial Regulations Office, or any external body since 2020; and if she will provide details of same. [3…

1250. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Health whether the treatment abroad scheme appears on any HSE or Departmental corporate risk register, strategic risk register, or internal assurance framework; and if so, the risks identified. [39143/26]

1251. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Health whether the treatment abroad scheme operates any formal benchmarking process comparing the cost of equivalent procedures across jurisdictions prior to authorisation approval. [39144/26]

1253. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Health whether any fraud-prevention, duplicate-payment detection, or abnormal expenditure-monitoring system is operated in respect of the treatment abroad scheme. [39146/26]

1254. Deputy Ken O'Flynn asked the Minister for Health whether any internal threshold, trigger mechanism or anomaly detection system exists within the treatment abroad scheme to identify unusually high-cost invoices received from healthcare providers in other EU/EEA states. [39149/26]